Peter Espeut TWO ISSUES now big in the news are the education system and crime. Looking back I notice that the same thing happened in August 2000 and I wrote a piece entitled 'Education and Crime'. The more things don't change the more they get worse!
At the time I wondered if people saw the connection between the two, but now I'm sure that most don't. Three years ago the Ministry of Education announced they were going to get strict on the pupil-teacher ratio and would separate 300 teachers from their jobs. About a year ago, before the Hon. Peter Phillips took up his present job, he promised resolute measures to deal with crime. Both efforts have failed. In neither case have we really dealt with the root cause of the problem.
When is the Ministry of Education going to get strict on the real issues on educational standards and performance to ensure that children who spend a decade in the school system at least learn to read and write? The way our educational system is designed particularly the juncture between primary and secondary wastes human capital, stunting the development potential of the flower of our youth. All-age schools and to a certain extent junior high schools and the former new secondary schools are educational dead ends, providing no real opportunity for mobility. The teachers know this, and I cannot count the number of times I have heard teachers 'cuss' students by telling them 'you dunce' and 'good-fe-nuttin except to turn criminal'. If teachers believe their students are hopeless, then they often teach accordingly, and their prophesy will come true. Maybe indeed those psychologically wounded by our education system will end up as gunmen.
Or worse! They could end up as policemen!
Ultimately, the failure of the education system comes down to the way it has been structured and the failure of teachers to teach. Part of it is a question of quality, teachers themselves being the product of a sub-standard system. I am not surprised that many Jamaican students write and speak badly when I observe and hear some of their teachers. I wish the JTA would dedicate itself to supporting quality among their membership, to rid classrooms of some of the dead wood.
FIGHTING CRIME
With the demise of Supt. Adams the government seems to have finally discovered that resoluteness in fighting crime is not just a matter of driving into an area, guns blazing, with tough boots to kick down doors. Solving crime has a lot to do with intelligence, and here I do not mean obtaining inside information; it is that also; I mean brain-power! Uneducated policemen no matter how powerful their firearms or accurate their informants are not likely to catch educated (or even slightly-educated) criminals. They will only catch stupid criminals, of which (thankfully) there are still many, thanks to our education system.
How many of us have had to give statements to the police and have noticed how much of a struggle it is for the officers to write down what you say? It was always a mystery to me why, except for manual labour-type jobs, the only employment you could get with Jamaica School Certificate (JSC) or Secondary School Certificate (SSC) qualifications was in the police force. Surely the police need people with more intellectual skills than bare literacy? One of the things that education does is to teach you how to think, to reason. We need policemen who can logically reason out a problem to be able to catch crooks. I don't know what was behind the policy of recruiting persons with only minimal education. Was it that our Police Force was not intended to be an agency using brain-power, but fire-power? Was it to be made up of foot-soldiers whose one duty was to mindlessly obey orders?
UNIVERSITY GRADUATES
Right now, Jamaican police "clear-up" less than one-third of murders, and that includes when they shoot down people in the street and announce that they are wanted for this murder or that. This poor record indicates the need for a higher level of police officer. Certainly nowadays, criminals are much smarter than they were years ago, requiring smarter, more highly trained policemen. I remember that a few years ago, the police tried to recruit university graduates into the force. That scheme was met with vociferous opposition from the rank-and-file members, many of whom entered with JSCs and SSCs and who saw their opportunities for promotion being lessened thereby. I don't want to be unkind to our police force, but I don't know if their rate of crime solution can increase much if they do not raise the entry-level qualifications and training of their recruits and members and officers. And this must happen especially with detectives in special agencies such as the CIB, the Fraud Squad, the Narcotics Division and the Special Branch.
To be promoted to gazette rank, officers must do more than pass an internal promotional exam. Indeed, persons with the proper qualifications should be able to be recruited straight to gazette rank, like in the army. I don't know if we have benefited from a policy which says that to be a Superintendent or Commissioner, you must rise from the ranks of constable. I support a "degree ceiling", such that no person could become a gazetted officer without a university degree. To be even the lowest rank of field agent in the FBI you must have a law degree. Should we not have that rule for our highest ranks?
Crime is not going to be reduced by increasing manpower or firepower in the police force. It is going to take brain-power! Where is the plan for that, Dr. Phillips? And where are new brainy recruits to the force to come from if the education system is turning out illiterates and barely literates?
And can we get better constables and officers without paying more? Economic growth and social peace are more likely to come when entrepreneurs and policemen emerge from an educated workforce than by keeping our labour force uneducated and cheap (to attract sweatshop investors) which has been the policy up to now. Time for a change!
Peter Espeut is a Sociologist and Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
